OCEANEESEAECH 25 



volves more work than most of us laymen would care to con- 

 template. 



As to the ' use of it all ' — there is no need to preach to the 

 converted. The industry has for years clamoured for knoAv- 

 ledge about the spawning habits and growth and wanderings 

 of food-fishes, not because knowledge wdll give authority 

 excuses for forbidding something or other, but because without 

 exact knowledge of this kind no one can decide the age at which, 

 from a business point of view, it is best to kill and market the 

 fish. In hke manner the sister science of Forestry alone can 

 teach men the proper time at which to fell each kind of tree. 



What is not always understood is that the life history of the 

 ' small game ' (shellfish, and water-lice, and starfish, and snails) 

 on which young fish feed, and the growth and reproduction 

 of the minute plants on which they, in their turn, browse, are 

 of no less interest than the habits of the fishes themselves. It 

 may seem at first sight to be of Httle ' practical use ' to discover 

 that barnacles go through a stage of development during w^hich 

 they swim about freely. When one knows the young wandering 

 barnacle (disguised as Balanus nawplius) to be an important 

 item in the dietary of baby turbot one-tenth of an inch long, it 

 at once becomes evident that the weal or woe of barnacles may 

 affect the livehhood of fishermen. But the fishermen cannot 

 realize that by the light of nature. Has [Science ever explained ? 



